


Every Sinner Has a Future

by gonergone



Category: Velvet Goldmine
Genre: Domestication, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-28
Updated: 2013-10-28
Packaged: 2017-12-30 19:08:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1022342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gonergone/pseuds/gonergone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Completely improbably, Arthur runs into Curt at a bar in Chicago, and he's not sure he's ever going to recover.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Every Sinner Has a Future

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thegirlwiththemouseyhair](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegirlwiththemouseyhair/gifts).



"I like fucking," Curt had said to Arthur once, right at the beginning, when they were both still so achingly young and Arthur wouldn't have dared deny him anything. "I like it rough. I'm not exactly stable, either, so you shouldn't expect much." He said it with the practiced, weary air of someone who'd said it all before, loads of times. Someone who was going through the motions with another fan who wanted a piece of _Curt Wild_. Most of it was lost on Arthur, who knew all the songs, had seen all the pictures, memorized all the interviews, even the last scared, slurred ones. In his mind somehow that added up to the feeling that he knew Curt, the real Curt. He didn't worry about being left and getting hurt. In fact, he expected it.

If this was as close to Curt as he'd ever get, he'd take it. He'd grab it with both hands, like a child in a bin of candy, hugging it close to his chest for as long as he could. This bit of shagging to Curt was actually the pinnacle of Arthur's life, not that he'd ever let Curt know that.

Most of the time, though, he thought Curt probably already did.

*

The third thing Arthur learned about him was that Curt liked to play dumb. It was a trick Arthur had used more than once with difficult sources, so he recognized it immediately. He shifted on the bar stool next to Curt impatiently, trying to swallow his frustration. He had watched Curt watch him over his beer for a long time, sizing him up. After he'd run into Curt the first time – the second time, really, but he never asked if Curt remembered the first time – when Arthur had been hot on the Brian Slade/Tommy Stone story, he'd never dreamed he'd see him again. Curt was a legend, a myth, the one who would always, always get away. He wasn't some punter that Arthur would just run into in one of the tiny bars on Chicago's south side. But there he was anyway, sitting by himself, his hair hiding his face. It had taken him about five minutes for Arthur to talk himself into coming over, and now he couldn't think of anything worth saying. He knew Curt was about ten seconds away from leaving. 

"I liked your last album," Arthur offered. 

"It was shit," Curt volleyed back instantly, his beer bottle clunking down on the bar. He shrugged. "Fun to make, though." His smile showed too many teeth.

"No," Arthur disagreed, shaking his head. "It was decent." (He wasn't going to go so far as "good," they both knew that would be a lie.) "Your voice has changed a lot in the past ten years. It's better now, I think, a bit more rock and roll. Coarser, you know? Dirtier?"

Curt shook out another cigarette and smirked at him around it as Arthur leaned forward to light it for him. "You're a shit flirt, anyone ever tell you that?"

Everyone, actually. "Who said I was flirting?"

Curt nodded thoughtfully. "I'd deny it too, that kind of pathetic display." He looked Arthur over, letting his gaze linger slightly in spots. "You've _got_ to be able to do better than that." 

Arthur was far too old to blush, but it did take him a moment to meet Curt's eyes, to hold his gaze. He managed to get laid with regularity, but he'd never quite gotten over the awkward gay teen years. The seventies were still as close for him as they were for Curt, and probably always would be. 

When he did look up, Curt grinned at him, and Arthur grinned back. It really was that easy. 

*

After that, Arthur knew he was just being used, and he let it happen because _Curt Wild_ but also because it was something he’d wanted for so long he didn’t know how to say no to it. Yes was in his blood and bones. Wanting this, _this exactly_ , was what had shaped his entire life: had made his parents chuck him out, had made him go into journalism for shit wages and long nights and no social life, just to be close to the world he could never touch, and now here it was, right in front of him, begging for his touch and his mouth. He could never, ever say no to that. It wasn’t even a possibility, though he’d seen enough of the world to know how terrible – how fucking beyond devastated – his entire existence was going to be when this ended.

Because it was going to end badly, maybe even bloodily. 

That much he knew for certain.

And it didn’t matter a bit.

*

If he came home early enough, he'd find Curt in the living room, idly playing the guitar and drinking coffee. He'd smile when Arthur sat down close to him on the sofa to watch, neither of them talking. It was as peaceful and domestic as Arthur had ever dared hope for, which was probably why it was so rare. He could watch Curt play for hours, and Curt loved to be watched. It was one of the many things that reminded Arthur of Brian, not that he ever said that name around Curt if he could help it. Some parts of the past needed to stay in the past.

Assuming, of course, that Brian _was_ past. Arthur didn't bring that up, either. He wasn't sure he really wanted to know. 

*

If Arthur came home later, if he was out half the night chasing a story, he'd find Curt gone, the flat still smelling like Curt's smokes and Curt's discarded clothes all over the bedroom in a way that Arthur found comforting. If his things were still there, it probably meant that Curt was coming back.

Probably.

Sometimes, most times, Arthur would wait up for him, sitting at his desk with his notes spread out around him, pretending to edit but mostly listening for the downstairs door, for the uneven thread of Curt's boots on the stairs. 

Sometimes, more than he liked to admit, he'd wake up and find he'd fallen asleep at the desk, that dawn had come and not brought Curt with it. Those were the times he tended to panic – not that he'd ever let Curt see it – because Curt would fight anyone, and drink anything, and try any drug once, even though he'd sworn all that was done. Curt never changed, though, not really. That was the second thing Arthur had learned about him.

*

The first thing Arthur had learned about him was that he hadn't been kidding about the fucking. Curt loved pulling Arthur into cramped toilets in crowded clubs, falling to his knees on the filthy floor, sucking Arthur off while Arthur stifled his moan in his fist, torn between wanting, _needing_ to see Curt like that and knowing he'd come soon, far too soon, if he did. Arthur would hold on for as long as he could until everything was too intense, too close, and he would dig his nails hard into Curt's scalp as he came down his throat. 

*

Curt kissed like he did everything else: furious and desperate, brutal. Like he wanted to pull Arthur apart, devour him, destroy him. He was a corrosive agent in Arthur's skin, in his blood, threatening to rip him apart. Arthur knew how dangerous that was, and he ran into it headlong anyway, because Curt was Curt and he was only ever himself, and this was not the sort of thing he got to have in his life.

Curt's fingernails bit into Arthur's arms as he thrust his tongue into his mouth, forcing Arthur back a half step to hit the wall, their hips slotting automatically.

Curt's teeth followed, biting hard enough to make Arthur jerk against him. It focused him, made him moan and push back, pressing as hard against Curt as he could, ready to merge into Curt, if he could. 

*

Afterward, Arthur watched Curt sleep, tracing a finger lightly around the black outlines of his tattoos, memorizing the swooping shapes, imprinting the view of Curt's body on his mind to remember later, once Curt had left and Arthur was alone again.

*

"It's not the song's _structure_ ," Curt nearly spat at him. "It's the fucking melody. It's all over the place."

"You just don't like it because it's too bloody pop for you," Arthur accused, but he couldn't help smiling at how seriously Curt took any discussion of music. Still, and always, music wasn't just what Curt did, it was who he was.

"Pop is fine. There's nothing wrong with pop. It's just shitty pop I can't stand, and the shit they try to sell these kids is fucking horrible, like they think kids are too stupid to know how bad it is. Why do they even bother? Why not make something decent? The band just needs the money, but the fucking labels –"

Arthur tipped his head back to hide his grin as Curt reached over to turn up the turntable. No doubt his neighbor would be banging on the walls pretty soon, if Curt kept it at that volume, but it hardly mattered. _Nothing_ mattered but sitting on the floor with Curt, their legs tangled together and music all round them, everything in sync, just for the moment. 

*

Curt didn't move in so much as start staying there all the time and not stay anywhere else. The flat really was crap – cramped and cluttered, both drafty and stuffy, somehow. But sometimes Arthur woke up to Curt strumming his guitar, his smile lazy, and he was happy.

Curt would stay up all night and go to bed at noon, so it was lucky Arthur didn't have the sort of job that required him to be in the office at nine every day. It took all of his self-control to leave Curt in the mornings, because Arthur was certain that as soon as he did Curt would disappear in a puff of cigarette smoke and discordant E-flat, and that would be that.

He regarded it as a minor miracle every single day that Curt didn't. 

*

"I saw Brian last night," Curt told him one morning as Arthur handed over a mug of coffee. His face was turned away as he said it, his hair covering his eyes. He was perfectly casual, as if he didn't know he was exploding Arthur's entire world. "Course," Curt added, biting his thumbnail and still not looking at Arthur, "I guess he's not calling himself Brian anymore, is he?"

"No," Arthur said, carefully setting his coffee down on the nightstand. He stood very still. "What did he want?"

Curt snorted. "Usual Brian. Pretended he didn't see me at first. I thought the bastard might pretend he didn't even know me, but even Brian couldn't pull that off."

"But what did he _want_?"

Curt shrugged. He held his coffee with two hands and stared into it. "I don't know. I think – " he paused, sighed. "I think he might've wanted me to go back with him. He's recording a new album, and he always liked to have lots of creative people around him to bounce ideas off." His words only sounded a little bitter to Arthur, and he still wouldn't meet his eyes. "He never actually asked, though – that's Brian all over: can't ask for anything, can't let anyone know he needs anything. He can demand, but that's about it."

"Pride," Arthur said quietly, because Curt was describing all of them, really. People who've been rejected once don't usually invite it a second time unless they were so obsessed (a younger Arthur might've said _in love_ , but he'd grown a bit since then) it made nothing else matter very much.

"Yeah," Curt agreed, and he did look up then, a smile tugging at one corner of his mouth. "Sounds like a real asshole, huh?"

"Are you going to go?"

Curt shook his head. "There's nothing there for me anymore. I never much liked London. Brian and me – we're not… good. Even now. For each other. You know?" He looked at Arthur for the first time, his eyes pleading. 

Arthur swallowed hard and nodded. 

He knew. 

"So I'll be sticking around for a while." He tilted his chin up at Arthur slightly, making it a question. Because Curt couldn't ever ask for anything, either, but that didn't mean he didn't need things.

"You know you can stay as long as you want," Arthur told him. "You always could. I thought… I thought you knew that."

Curt looked him in the eye and smiled, and Arthur smiled back.  



End file.
